For me, I just am so grateful to be an actor.
I don't get jobs in films by auditioning. I'm not blonde. You can't place me in movies the way you can with certain actors. It's very difficult for my agents.
All the jobs I've gotten in the last two years are because directors have seen the work I've done - indie films, plays, short student films, TV - since I moved to the states in 1996. I mean, I have an entire career in Canada that nobody has seen.
You should see my house. It's sort of explosive. Like a crazy person lives there.
I'd be so fascinated to talk to a psychologist or sociologist about the deep psychological impact of seeing oneself represented. I don't think we've really touched the surface of what it does to the psyche of a people if the only image of you out there is negative. Or if it's never out there.
I feel comfortable in places like London. You get many cultures in L.A. but it's strangely segregated.
I was lucky on 'Arli$$.' I basically got to do whatever I wanted because HBO is great for that.
When I saw 'Fleabag,' and when this script came to me, there is a uniqueness and a dark naughtiness to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's sensibility that I did gravitate towards, very much.
I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.
I think it's just as important what you say no to as what you say yes to.
Anyone who has been obsessed or been in a mad love affair, sometimes you don't make the right decisions.
I feel like I don't really have a sense of humor... I don't know if I could characterize it dark or light. I just - I do like humor.
It takes a long time to free oneself from chatter - goals, social media, image, persona. And if you're able to move through in that way, you can actually start trying to create from a different place.
Becoming an actor? If it's not a calling, don't do it. It's too hard.
As a working actor, all I want to do is work. That's it. It's terrifying when you don't work. It's very hard when you don't work. There have been times when I've been out of work for like six months. I feel theatre to me is like manna.
People ask me what I'm writing. They think I'm Sandra Tsing Loh. Or they ask about stand-up. 'No, that's Margaret Cho.' I really think there is this kind of glomming, that they think we are somehow all the same person.
I am so constantly amazed by people's care and love for Cristina Yang.
And on a Canadian set, everybody is equal. You get paid the same. You live together in barracks. You have a communal kitchen. You buy and cook your own food.
A lot of things that I can't get into the room for, even just to be seen, is because they're just saying 'No. they're not casting non-white.' You're lumped into a category with people who are just not white.
When your life changes and you become a more public person, in some ways you need to be a more closed person, you know?
